La voz de Worcester will be missed

The voice of Worcester is not dead, only sleeping. These two sentences, the first written in Spanish and the second in English, say the same thing, but for some only one will bring understanding.

That doesn't mean the world of the Spanish speaker is different from that of the English speaker. After all, language, like music, accentuates, rather than defines our lives. In both worlds you will find love and hate, laughter and tears, courage and cowardice, triumph and failure, empathy and apathy and individuals like Andres Perez.

A well-known and much beloved radio personality in the Worcester Latino community, Mr. Perez, known by his audience as the voice of Worcester, died July 29, following a one-year battle with cancer, an adversary he knew very well through his annual radiothons to raise funds for children who suffer from terminal illnesses.

"He loved this city like he loved his family," Octavio Sanchez, a local businessman and longtime friend, said.

"He believed Latinos have a lot to offer the community, and he spent his life here chipping away at the barriers that would keep us from being active and influential community members. He was a simple man, whose message to the general community was simply 'we too are like you…we too have people who pass away and who we will miss very much."

It is hard to fathom Mr. Perez being humble and down-to-earth as Mr. Sanchez and other friends and relatives have described him. This was a man, for example, who before he had even been introduced to his wife, Tania Martina Romero, pointed her out to a friend and declared she was the girl he would marry.

Yet, as Maritza Rodriquez, a family friend, noted, the sincerity of his intentions was soon realized in his eventual marriage to Ms. Romero, and his subsequent decision to abandon a flourishing radio career in the Dominican Republic to follow her here to America.

Then again, according to Tania Perez Romero, the eldest of Mr. Perez' two daughters, "he always did the right thing, even if it was a difficult choice."

The community came to understand this penchant of Mr. Perez for doing the right thing during his many years broadcasting on MEGA 1310 AM station in Worcester. He used his radio presence to help Latinos, particularly the younger generation, bridge the gap between the culture that molded their immigrant parents, and the culture that now molds them here in America, according to Juan Matos, president of Casa Cultural Dominicana.

According to Mr. Matos, Mr. Perez would accompany his music broadcasts with discussions exploring the stories behind the music, the singers, the writers, the time in which those musicians were living, and the impact they had on their times.

His work outside the radio studio, which he gave even greater weight, was broad and vigorous. He was vice president of Casa Cultural Dominicana de Worcester, which works to preserve the Dominican culture and to raise the quality of life of Latinos living in the Worcester community.

He was a central figure in several other community groups and organizations, and he was instrumental in the creation of the annual Latino Festival, which will be dedicated to him this year.

Mr. Perez's "beautiful voice," which could command attention, while being assuring at the same time, was silenced by the cancer shortly before he died, his wife noted. Nevertheless, she said, those whose lives her husband touched will still be able to hear him, if they abide by the goodness of their hearts.